Black Friday

Huron River, Hudson Mills to Delhi Metropark

23 November 2012

There is no better way to spend Black Friday than on the river, and during this 9-mile or so paddle, we learned that is true even when being on the river means being out in the first snow of the season.  When Ellen and I planned this paddle with our friend Doug ten or so days ago, the forecast was for sunny skies and highs in the upper 40s, so we anticipated going to a river further away and paddling a little longer.  No sooner than Thanksgiving morning, the forecast changed drastically, showing a small threat of snow.  We thought it prudent to opt for a trip a bit shorter and closer to home. These turned out to be prudent choices.

It was truly as if the seasons changed while we were on the river. When we got in our boats, it was fall–the temperature was 42, and the sun was poking through the clouds. By about our mid-point, Ellen tried to discount stray flakes of snow as lint, a charade Doug and I were only too happy to perpetuate.  By the time our paddle was 2/3 done, we were in full-on blowing snow, and it stayed like that until we got back to our cars, where the temperature read 33. We got out of our boats, and it was winter; what I am saying here, people, is that we actually paddled to winter. 

Allow me to reiterate that the snow was blowing–we were in some serious wind, mostly to our backs but all the same strong, and cold.  And it made the trees creek eerily as we paddled through them.  This photo to the left shows some damage from a tornado earlier this year, and the downed trees here made me look askance at the ones creaking in the wind.  But despite my frequent deployment of the “dramatic” filter on the camera, we had no real drama to speak of. I was pretty sure I was going to freeze to death when we stopped for lunch, but that turned out to be me over-reacting, and Ellen did manage to get her boat lodged waaaaay up on a big rock on the river, but that got solved pretty quickly too, and without anyone getting wet.

We saw a lot of wildlife but didn’t get pictures of much of any of it. The heron to the right here, with a fetching eye mask and very handsome bloomers on, is the one exception.  We also had weasels galore, at least one osprey, and a bald eagle that we spied from the car, actually, but it was on the river hanging out with a bunch of swans. We all wondered if it even was an eagle, because it seemed so strange that an eagle would calmly hang out actually on the river, not perched above it, but the markings matched exactly the markings of a decoy bald eagle someone was using as a yard ornament, and we all know that the folks who make yard ornaments are slaves to accuracy.

We also saw much evidence of a beaver–two trees chomped down like this one here. There seemed to be no real reason to chew down these trees in the spots where they were; the river is too wide to block. So likely the responsible beaver was just using up his teeth, or killing a dull afternoon.  Whatever the beaver’s motivations, I for one was heartened by these signs that it is for good reason that we have the old adage “busy as a beaver.”

So, Black Friday on the river: well, it was still tons better than being at the mall, but I think it’s safe to say that the snow, the wind, and the temperatures in the lower 30s all combined to help us locate the outer limit of what we consider paddling weather. Even so, as we were packing up our gear to go home, Ellen said, “I’m glad I saw my first snowflake of the season on the river.” I have to agree with her!